| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: They brewed a drink long-syne,
Was sweeter far than honey,
Was stronger far than wine.
They brewed it and they drank it,
And lay in a blessed swound
For days and days together
In their dwellings underground.
There rose a king in Scotland,
A fell man to his foes,
He smote the Picts in battle,
He hunted them like roes.
Ballads |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Critias by Plato: and had intercourse with her, and breaking the ground, inclosed the hill in
which she dwelt all round, making alternate zones of sea and land larger
and smaller, encircling one another; there were two of land and three of
water, which he turned as with a lathe, each having its circumference
equidistant every way from the centre, so that no man could get to the
island, for ships and voyages were not as yet. He himself, being a god,
found no difficulty in making special arrangements for the centre island,
bringing up two springs of water from beneath the earth, one of warm water
and the other of cold, and making every variety of food to spring up
abundantly from the soil. He also begat and brought up five pairs of twin
male children; and dividing the island of Atlantis into ten portions, he
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